Today, Guttenberg, who lived in the 15th century, is considered the inventor of printing. However, in the middle of the 11th century, the Chinese Bi-Shen carried out the first printing using letters made of bricks. The outstanding orientalist Philip Hitti in his work “A Brief History of the Arabs” writes that the method of copying letters by artificial means was known to Muslims even before this event. One of the secretaries of the Emir of Andalusia sent documents he wrote at home to a special copying center. This center was a primitive printing house, the working principle of which is unknown to us. Official documents were distributed among state officials already from the printing house.
In the library of the Emir of Andalusia Hakam the Second, who ruled in the 10th century, 600,000 copies of books were stored. After 400 years, King Charles V of France was able to collect only 900 books in his library. The French Orientalist Gauthier wrote: “If the Western Renaissance had not taken advantage of such a legacy of Islamic culture as books, paper, and postal communication, it is terrible to imagine what position the West would be in.”
In the Middle Ages, Muslims were also at the forefront of medicine. Even in the 13th century, Ibn Nafis discovered the small circle of blood circulation. However, even today this discovery is attributed to Michael Servetus, who lived 300 years after Ibn Nafis.
As early as the beginning of the 9th century, Muslim craftsmen made musical water clocks. Harun al-Rashid sent one of these watches as a gift to the French king Charlemagne. The silver dial was divided into 12 hours. Every hour, a metal ball rolled onto a bronze platform, while a bell was heard. At exactly 12 o’clock, figures of knights were shown from the structure, who, having made a circle, returned to their place. The whole French palace was amazed by such a miracle.
At the beginning of the 17th century, the Muslim theologian and inventor Sheikh Bahai built a bath in Isfahan, which was heated by only one candle. Later, Western scientists tried to solve this mystery, but in vain. According to some sources, Sheikh Bahai used gases obtained from burning waste to heat the bath itself and the water.